Julia Gillard reveals her 'murderous rage' at sexist attacks

Julia Gillard has spoken out about her “murderous rage” and her determination
not to cry in public as she endured vicious personal attacks while serving
as Australia’s first female prime minister.

Ms Gillard revealed her reasons for making her famous 'misogyny' speech in parliament last yearPhoto: AFP

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

2:07PM BST 30 Sep 2013

In her first public outing in Australia since she was deposed as prime minister in June, Ms Gillard appeared upbeat and buoyed by a strong show of support in a packed hall at the Sydney Opera House.

During a candid question and answer session, Ms Gillard, 52, was asked by an eleven-year-old girl how she coped with “all that horrible sexism”.

The former Labor prime minister said one of her strongest motivations when she left office was not to give her most strident critics the pleasure of seeing her publicly cry.

“In moments of some stress and pressure… I certainly did say to myself that I would not give those people the satisfaction of seeing me shed a tear,” she said. “[It was] some iteration of ‘don’t let them get you down’”.

Ms Gillard also revealed her reasons for making her famous “misogyny” speech in parliament last year in which she stared down then opposition leader Tony Abbott, now the prime minister, telling him: “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not.” The speech made global headlines and is set to go down as one of the defining moments of her leadership.

Ms Gillard said she had initially decided after becoming prime minister that she would not highlight her gender but soon discovered that it was becoming a “burden” and a source of vitriol rather than a benefit. To roaring applause, she said the catalyst for the speech was the claim by Mr Abbott, who has long been criticised as hostile to women, that she was sexist.

“I thought, ‘after everything I've had to see on the internet, after all the gendered abuse that I've seen in newspapers, that has been called at me across the despatch box, now of all things I've got to listen to Tony Abbott lecture me about sexism,’ she said.

“That is what gave the emotional start to the speech of "I will not" and once I had started, it just sort of got a life of its own."

The Welsh-born former lawyer became leader after ousting Kevin Rudd in 2010 but failed to win a majority at the election shortly after and was forced to rule with only a tiny parliamentary majority. Her years as leader were a divisive and unstable era in Australian politics as she struggled to assert her legitimacy, while facing vehement attacks from Mr Abbott, who was a particularly combative and highly effective opposition leader.

Ms Gillard quit politics at the election earlier this month and plans to write a political memoir. She has taken an honourary role at Adelaide University and will work as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Despite recent claims by a women’s magazine, she revealed that she has not split with her long-time partner, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser.

Ms Gillard said she was disgusted that Mr Abbott and others responded to her misogyny speech by claiming she was playing the “gender card”.

“It just amazes me that we can be having this infantile conversation about gender wars,” she said.

“You just feel like saying: ‘Well, if it was your daughter and she was putting up with sexist abuse at work, what would you advise her to do?’… We have to be able to say strongly to women and girls that you have got a right to an environment that treats you with respect, treats you as an equal and that raising your voice about that isn’t starting a war, it isn’t playing the victim, it’s just asking for what simply is right”.